Posted by Rob Perelli-Minetti on January 13, 2000 at 17:23:21:
In Reply to: Why not start new players on CC or F ? posted by Tom Brekhus on January 10, 2000 at 23:00:13:
Putting on my flame retardant suit, I am inclinded to disagree with those who advocate high schools buying one or two CC tubas for serious students (reflecting the reality that the school tuba world is not going to switch from BBb to CC en masse).
I don't see the typical high school music program as designed with the future professional in mind, rather designed around the student who is interested in music, may play in college as an avocation (even in a school sponsored ensemble) and thereafter may play in community settings. From the tuba perspective, I think that student is perfectly adequately served by decent quality BBb instruments.
With other instruments, the students who are really serious don't buy (or rent) student line instruments; rather they purchase new or used professional quality instruments according to their means. We all talk about the cost of tubas, but professional flutes run in the $3-8,000 range (and up), professional saxaphones run well over $3,000, and professional oboes and bassoons are even more expensive. Professional trumpets are around $1500, but a serious student studying privately will usually own a Bb, a C, a Bb/A piccolo trumpet and maybe an Eb or Eb/D making his or her total instrument investment pretty comparable to that of serious tuba student buying a very good used, or fair new, CC horn.
Given that rough equality in total instrument investment, I think it's reasonable to expect serious tuba students to provide their own CC instruments if they don't want to play the BBb horns provided by the schools. School owned instruments seem somehow far more prone to damage and abuse than privately owned instruments and I dont' think its a reasonable use of a school's limited instrument budget resources to subsidize serious tuba students in a way we don't subsidize students on other instruments.